Monday, 17 July 2006
6.30pm — 8.30pm
ArtHouse Hotel
[More info]
Chair: Tom Lanni
Topic: “Bugger the ’Strine, Give Me the Dime.”
Come and join in an entertaining evening of exciting speakers and great ideas. Have your say on what you feel is important for the future direction of filmmaking in Australia.
- How do we appeal to local and global markets?
- Is globalisation, standardisation?
- In aiming at a broad market are we in danger of losing what makes us uniquely Australian?
- Does international success mean we will lose our national identity?
- What is our national identity?
All these questions and more will be fully debated and explored by our teams of debaters with eloquence, passion, and humour before the floor will be invited to put its points of view.
The motion will then be put that the room believes that: “to gain future international success, we will lose our national identity”, and the votes for and against taken.
Our teams once again reflect the rich and diverse mix of talent and experience that we have in the NAFA membership ranks.
The Team for the Affirmative
Annie Cossins
Annie threw herself into acting in her middle ages and had the audacity to become a theatre producer and script writer without paying attention to the rules of etiquette or the pecking order.
Nick Bolton
By day, Nick Bolton is Sales and Marketing Director for Viocorp, a video production and streaming media company. In his spare time, Nick is an actor and producer, and Founder of Actors Anonymous. Nick is also a Director of Nice Shorts — Australia’s leading short film website.
Brigid O’Sullivan
Brigid’s professional career has encompassed stage, film, TV, corporate entertainment, radio, commercials and stand-up in both Sydney and London. She is looking forward to debating and is assuming it will be a lot more fun than playing a piece of celery trapped in the stomach of an alien. At least this time she won’t have to wear a lime-green catsuit. [Damn! — Ed.]
The Team for the Negative
Adam Gelin
Adam acts, directs, writes, improvises, has dabbled in stand up comedy and sings self-penned songs, all of which he hopes should compensate for his lack of formal debating experience. His recalcitrant accent reveals his American origins but he’s called Australia home for over 20 years.
Martha Knox-Haly
Martha is an organisational psychologist and wife of the fabulous geekboy John Haly. Mrs Knox-Haly normally abhors nationalistic jingoism, but will do anything to get the upper hand in a good argument (especially against the glib deep superficiality that is Hollywood).
Bryan Cutts
Bryan’s career includes working as an actor, producer, clown, director, sponsorship manager, and all-round dogsbody. He is best known as an opinionated big-mouth, which is all the qualification he needs to justify his presence on the panel.